The Trexler Library: Muhlenberg College

Civilization of Spain

Need help with your research? Contact:

Kelly Cannon
Humanities & Business Librarian
phone: x3602
email: kcannon@muhlenberg.edu
IM (AIM, Yahoo, MSN): refcannon
Reference desk IM: talktotrexler

 Finding reference works

 generally. . .

Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia (Ref Collection 946.0203 G371m) includes entries on food of that era. Cultural Atlas of Spain and Portugal (Ref Collection 946 V773c) includes food items in its index.

The new Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture (Ref Collection 946.003 E56o) is a compendium of Spanish cultural aspects since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Historical Dictionary of Modern Spain 1700-1988 (Ref Collection 946.003K39h) takes a similar approach, though for fewer subjects.

food. . .

Perhaps the most complete, with scholarly bibliographies, is the three-volume Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (Ref Collection 641.03 K19e). The Food Chronology (Ref Collection 641.09 T765f) is organized by date, but indexed by country and food, from earliest recorded history to the present. A two-volume set, The Cambridge World History of Food (Ref Collection 641.309 C178w) is probably the most scholarly; indexed by country and food. The Oxford Companion to Food (641.3003 D252o) has brief historical and descriptive entries on nearly every kind of food. Nectar & ambrosia : an encyclopedia of food in world mythology (Ref Collection 398.27 A571n) intersects food and beliefs, as does The Dictionary of Sacred and Magical Plants (Ref Collection 398.36803 R236d).

Finding books

Trexler Library Catalog ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Library Catalogs > WorldCat
A word search on the catalog allows searching on a single or wood or any combination of words, using Boolean logic. Example searches: "food and spain" "potato" "olive" "(spain or spanish) and (cooking or cookery)"

WorldCat ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Library Catalogs > WorldCat
Catalog of books and documents in libraries throughout the world. Watch especially for the AREA LIBRARIES designation.

Journal articles

general indexes with full text. . .

Academic Search Premier 
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
A subscription database. Good starting place for journals, and includes the full text of about 3000 journals. Limit to "peer reviewed" to find only scholarly articles. Back issues of journals begin as early as 1990. Recent issues may not be included yet, due to publisher agreement. Journals held in Trexler Library are marked accordingly. English only.

Omnifile (WilsonWeb)
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
A subscription database. Includes extensive full text, from both popular and scholarly periodicals. English only.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com)
An open-access web crawler that looks for content it identifies as "scholarly." Emphasis is on books and journal articles. Intended as a "federated search" to search across disciplines (weighted toward sciences and social sciences). Not always full text. Check our catalog to see if Muhlenberg has access to the full text. Good for Spanish-language.

subject-specialty indexes. . .

Anthropology Plus
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Articles related to ethnicity, folklore, legends, fiestas, etc. English and Spanish.

Art Full Text
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Standard index for art criticism. English and Spanish.

PRISMA ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Index and full text to journals published in and about Latin America, across the disciplines. In Spanish and English.

Historical Abstracts ***RECOMMENDED***
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Index to historical research about Latin America and Spain. English and Spanish.

MLA
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Standard index for literary and film criticism. English and Spanish.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Standard index for music and some dance criticism. English and Spanish.

Sociological Abstracts
NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Databases A to Z
Index to sociological research. English and Spanish.

getting to the full text. . .

Once you have found the citation of a journal article you're interested in, click on the Get It link found next to the citation, or run a journal title search in Trexler Library's catalog. NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > catalog.

articles via interlibrary loan. . .

Journal articles not found in Trexler Library can be ordered on interlibrary loan.
NOTE: Access from Trexler Library website > Interlibrary Loan

Can I search all the library databases and catalog together, in one search?

Most of the databases and the library catalog can be searched together in a new library search engine called Search Central found on the Trexler Library website. Most useful when working with narrow topics where you need everything that's available.  Several search features are missing from the original databases, like relevance, and language and peer review limiters.

Web search engines and directories

Google (http://www.google.com)
Non-selective. One of the largest web crawlers.

Google Espana (http://www.google.es/)
Non-selective, but allows limit to Spanish-language and Spanish-located sites.

Intute (http://www.intute.ac.uk/)
The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in the database and write high quality descriptions of the resources.

Citing sources

For tips on citing print and electronic sources, visit Trexler Library's Citation Guides for Print and Electronic Resources. NOTE: Access from the Trexler Library website > Citation Guides.

For automated citation, try the shareware Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/).

© Muhlenberg College
Last modified: 2 August 2010